Sunday, October 27, 2013

So I was laughing at the Universe because for some odd reason the pumpkin patch mixed up my fire pit reservation from the cute kids maze "Spookley the pumpkin corn maze" TO the HUGE Adult maze....seen here in the picture...we somehow were to find our way in the dark to fire pit #6 lol!!!! We managed to get to our pit and

we had a blast! It was fun making a campfire dinner right in the corn maze by a bonfire. We are working on our "Outdoor Activity Award" and we choose these activities to complete:

1. Participate in an outdoor activity such as a picnic or park fun day

2. Explain the buddy system and tell what to do if lost.

3. Participate in an outdoor campfire program. Perform in a skit, sing a song, or take part in a ceremony

We already completed a 4th activity for this badge by doing our nature walk at our last week's outing. Now, we only have one more activity to do for this award. Next week we will accomplish this by completing a nature/conservation project in our area.

Hello everyone! Here is an orientation sheet I made for my cub scout parents explaining how meetings are run and how our "bear buck" program will work. Also on this post you will find the bear buck printables and an "About Me" printable I created for you. This was part of our 1st meeting agenda.

Hello everyone! The first week of October I held my first den meeting as a den mother and we had a blast!

My den is a group of Bear cubs (3rd graders) and we needed to work on our "Achievement 5 Sharing Your World with Wildlife" for earning towards our Bear badge. The achievement 5a states to make a bird feeder. I figured that since its October that it would be fun to make a Haunted House bird feeder.

Our den meetings are held in the library so it wouldn't be a good idea for the boys to paint the milk cartons themselves so I prepared the cartons by washing them, drying and then painting them with black acrylic paint. I was able to paint 12 cartons with just one small bottle of black acrylic paint. (right...middle picture shows my box ready to go with all the pre-painted milk cartons and snapware containers that held all the small bottles of glue, stickers etc.

The windows on the milk carton are actually glow-in-the-dark duck tape =D I was so thrilled to find this!!! (its pictured in the upper right in photo) For the dimensional stickers, they were purchased at Michael's craft store for $1.00 a pack. I bought 6 packs (2 ea of bats, spider in web stickers and eyeball stickers) and divided up the stickers among the boys. To make things run easier at the meeting I didn't want to bother with cutting all the duck tape strips for the shingles on the roof. What I did was cut the strips in approximately 2 inch length and then folded the strip leaving part of the sticky strip exposed and then I adhered them to baggies. The boys then could just peel off the strips and place them on the top of the carton. I make a pre-cut slit at the bottom of the opening on the milk carton so that the boys could just slip their wooden stick (also purchased at Michael's craft store in a pack) right into. This way I didn't have to deal with cutting and messing with it at the meeting. I also cut out the little ghosts and bats you see on wire floating above the feeder. I laminated them and once cut I taped them to pre-cut craft wire so all the boys needed to do is tape the wire to the roof. The last thing I did to prepare the feeders for the meeting was to hole punch the top of the carton and attach the string for the feeder to be hung up.

Here is a printable I created of how I prepared the milk carton feeders:

Friday, October 4, 2013

This was a fun little lunch to make =D I used apple slices to create the feathers on the olw. The pencil was created using a mozzarella stick, ham for the eraser, a bugle chip (purchased at Target 1.00 stop) and a raisin for the tip.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Yea..I am one of those moms who does NOT buy those lunchables...I just see the dyes in them and nitrates in the lunch meat and I cringe! I always buy the nitrate free lunch meats for our lunches. My sons have been telling me time and time again that they want to try one just ONCE PLEASE MOMMY! They see many of their classmates bringing them for lunch.

Soooo....I let them try it just this ONCE lol! So we are living on the edge today and they are having their first "lunchable" I am trying to ease my mind by hoping they will finish their cherry tomatoes, kiwi and cutie orange to help balance it all out haha!

I chuckle at myself just one year ago this week when I first signed my boys up for Cub Scouts. I looked at the neckercheif and was unsure how it was to be worn so on the picture (right side...bottom) I positioned it like a fashion scarf and didn't any of the neckerchief showing in the back. I knew NOTHING about cub scouts. I actually thought it was ALL called Boy Scouts. Then I learned there are cub scouts then weblos and THEN Boy Scouts haha!

These pictures were our very first pack meeting and well our first scout meeting ever! My son Ian who is my youngest entered in as a Tiger but was in kindergarten so he was too young to earn actual badges but they get to do all the activites. My oldest son Jayden entered in as a wolf after earning his bobcat badge.

Here I am a year later as a den mother for my oldest son's Bear Cub den. We have grown to really love Cub Scouts and my boys have the same enthusiasm a year later about going to their meetings and activites. Cub Scouts have been the best mix of teamwork, athletics, art, competition, social skills, leadership, character building, confidence building and growing experience for my boys!

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Den meetings are usually held after school or on the evening. It is up to you as the den leader if you would like to meeting on a weekly basis or bi-weekly. For my den we plan to meet bi-weekly. The den meetings last approximately an hour. As a den leader you will be investing your time in other meetings as well such as:

* One evening each month for a pack meeting

* One evening a month for the Cub Scout Roundtable ( at the roundtable you will get good program ideas based on the monthly core value and meet other leaders in your pack)

* One evening each month for a planning meeting with other pack leaders.

Tomorrow will be my first meeting as a den mom =D Here is the agenda I am starting out with for our first meeting. Since this is the month of October I thought it would be fun to work on achievement 5a making a bird feeder in a haunted house theme. Stay tuned for pictures and a tutorial on how we made it!